The Anglerfish
by khloride
Summary: Two Animorphs experiment with a new morph. But like with every new morph, can they handle the instincts? - on hold while i figure out what those instincts are -


**The Anglerfish**

We had to go on some stupid field trip to the aquarium. To make matters worse, it was a behind the scenes trip, so we had to stand there and listen to some boring person talk the entire time. If we had just been going to the aquarium, then at least we could wander around as we pleased. But no, we were going to be bored the entire time.

No, I need to clarify. I was going to be bored and annoyed the entire time. Marco was going to be cracking lame jokes the entire time. I wish Cassie was going with. At least then I would have _someone_ to talk with other than Marco. Melissa would be there, but I really don't have anything to say to her these days. Even though I'm sad that our friendship got thrown on the back self, I still can't get over the fact that her father is a highly influential Yeerk.

Marco and I were going in our biology class to the aquarium for the entire day. Cassie and Jake were in the other section, and they were going the following week. I still don't see why they couldn't have gotten a second bus and sent everyone at once.

I wanted to sit alone on the bus ride over, but some stupid girl named Tammy insisted on sitting next to me. At least she was smart enough not to talk to me. She saw me staring daggers at her then turned and started talking to some other idiot, superficial girl on the other side of the aisle. This was going to be a long day.

When we finally got there, I think Marco had already asked out half the girls on the bus out on a date. Since Jake wasn't there, there was no one stupid enough to laugh at his jokes. Since all the girls were creeped out by the little twerp, as they should be, he decided that he just _had_ to hang out with me.

"So Rachel, what do you say we sneak off and jump in the ocean and morph dolphins and just play all day?" Marco asked me, slightly undertone.

I glared at him. Even though I would have given almost anything to spend the day swimming or flying, I sure as hell didn't want to spend it with him. "Fat chance, Marco. They are going to be taking attendance when we get in, during lunch, and before we all have to get back on the bus. I will not have everyone in the school think that I played hooky with _you_."

Marco made an overly exaggerated pouting face. "What girl wouldn't want everyone to know they spent the whole day with me? I'm cute, funny, sensitive, adorable, and did I mention cute?"

I rolled my eyes. "If everyone thought of you the same way you do, then this world really should fall to the Yeerks."

"Hey! Not so loud!" Marco hissed. He glanced over his shoulder. "I wouldn't want anyone to know that the mighty Xena might actually not think that I'm the most amazing man in the world."

I laughed harshly. "And here I thought you were being your usual annoying, paranoid self about to tell me not to say the word Yeerk too loudly."

He frowned, "Well, you shouldn't do that either."

I heard the teacher call my name. I tried to look attentive as I asked, "Yes?"

"Good, you're here. Go on in, get the "Behind-the-Scenes" badge, and write your name on the tag."

I did as the teacher instructed as she continued with her roll call. A few minutes later, Marco joined me on the other side. I looked at his name badge. It said "Mr. Incredible."

I punched him on the shoulder.

"OW! What in hell was that for?" he whined, rubbing his shoulder.

"Your name badge said you're Mr. Incredible. I was just trying to see if that was true. He isn't supposed to feel pain or something, right?" I said innocently.

"I think you got your superheroes mixed up," he said, still rubbing his shoulder.

He was actually quiet after that. But it didn't last long. Once the whole class was inside, the guide from the aquarium came down and introduced herself to us. And so began the long and boring tour.

At first it wasn't so bad. It was pretty cool to see how everything worked. I thought it was funny how some of the systems were really high tech and advanced, then something broke and it was a simple, slipshod repair made of duct tape and zip ties held it all together and ended up lasting for years.

Marco actually seemed more bored than I was. He was making tasteless jokes the entire time, but since no one was laughing, he seemed to try even harder and the jokes just got worse.

Everything was going like your usual field trip up until lunch. I opted to eat with Melissa and some of the other gymnasts while Marco sat with some other people. I knew the people he was sitting with. Well, I knew of them. I'm not as social as I once was. I just don't have anything to say to a lot of people. They simply don't understand what's going on with me anymore, and it's not like I can talk to them about it anyway. So I sat with Melissa and we talked about the new routine we were supposed to be learning, the one that I hadn't spent any time at all in trying to memorize.

After lunch, they took attendance again. The second half of the day was supposed to be more interesting than the first half. We'd already seen the entire aquarium. We watched the keeper feed half of the fish and clean a tank here and there. Now, we supposedly were supposed to observe some of the rarer fish so that we could write a report on them. Then I found out we were supposed to write this report with a partner. Now I really wished for Cassie. She probably would have already known half of what we would need to write. But no, the teacher chose our partners and I got stuck with Marco. Of course. Just my luck.

We didn't get to pick our animals either. I wanted to do the dolphin or giant squid, something I knew about, something I've been. Something that would be easy for us because Marco wasn't going to be much of a help anyway. It's not that I couldn't have done something harder, but I would rather spend the time flying or sleeping instead of doing research and writing. So, naturally, Marco and I got a fish neither of us knew anything about. The anglerfish.

Marco showed me the card with its picture. "Now here's a fish you'll appreciate."

I looked at it. It was a vicious looking animal with huge glowing eyes and a mouth that took up almost the entire body. That mouth was overflowing with long, sharp teeth. I liked it. "Why's it called an anglerfish? It should be called a toothfish or something."

Marco smirked, "How creative."

"Your mom was creative." Marco glared at me as I read off the back of the card. "The anglerfish is located in section 12b. After viewing the exhibit from the public side, check in with the keepers and have them give you more information about your fish."

"12b," Marco read off the aquarium map, "that's in the deep ocean section."

I shrugged, "You're the one with the map, lead the way."

He yakked the entire time we walked to the anglerfish's tank. What he talked about, I have no idea. When we finally got there, I was extremely disappointed. The whole exhibit was dimly lit to simulate being at the depths of the ocean. I could barely make out anything in any of the tanks.

"Marco!" I called. He walked over to me. "This is tank B, it should be in here."

"Oh, goody," he said. "Where's Rachel's dream fish? Too bad we don't fight in the water more often, I bet you'd love having a morph with all those teeth. You could morph it, jump in the Yeerk pool, and just chomp Yeerks all day long."

I shook my head. "You're pathetic you know? The sign says that most fish from the deep sea are extremely pressure and temperature sensitive. It said that a lot of fish from this part of the ocean have a hard time surviving because they can't recreate the crushing pressure they experience in the wild."

Marco just grunted. What a typical ape.

I turned and looked at the anglerfish's information sign. "The anglerfish gets its name by the method it uses to catch prey. The anglerfish dangles a bioluminescent (light producing) lure, called the esca, which is attached to its head on a modified fin, called the illicium. When a potential prey item, such as a fish or shrimp swims by, it is attracted to the light and quickly eaten by the anglerfish. Its teeth and jaw have evolved to extreme proportions so that when the rare animal does swim by, it can almost always catch it and consume it. The largest of anglerfish can reach nearly 4 feet, while others are no more than a few inches. The aquarium is fortunate enough to have a 1.5 foot female specimen. We also have a male specimen not on display."

"Blah blah blah, I don't even see the fish," Marco complained.

I sighed and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the glass. "Come on you idiot, let's go find one of the aquarium people."

He let me pull him for a bit before finally wiggling out of my grasp and started looking for one of the keepers, too. We finally found one. We flashed our badges and he led us to the back. He made us wait by the anglerfish tank while he went to get the keeper in charge of them. This guy was a keeper for some sort of freshwater fish, a disk or discus or something. He was kind of a jerk so I was glad we didn't get that fish.

The anglerfish keeper finally arrived. She was a thin woman in her mid-forties. She had on the same uniform as the rest of the people there, but unlike the rest of the field researchers, she didn't have the burnt-out-by-sun look. She began by telling us her name and a little bit about what she did. I didn't think it was all that interesting. She spent a lot of time in a lab or in a tiny submersible at the bottom of the ocean. I didn't like the sound of that, it made me feel a little claustrophobic.

She led us to a room that had access to the wall of tanks that included the anglerfish and a few other small fish. There was a lot of other tanks and equipment that she quickly pointed out. She then showed us the display tank that held the female and the back tank that held the male. She was about to start giving us a lecture about the fish when some guy came up and said they were having a problem with the filter on the sleeper shark exhibit. She pretty much just told us not to break anything and left, closing the door behind her.

Marco looked at me very slyly. "Soooo, we're alone now."

"Don't even think about it. I'd throw you in the tank before you could make any sort of move," I responded.

"Or, you could wait until I explained what was on my mind."

"Nothing that isn't X rated."

"Oh," he said, feigning hurt, "what makes you think that I'm _that _kind of guy? No, no, no, my dear Rachel, that was not what I was talking about. I was thinking more along the lines of morphing."

"You're going to morph what? A toad? Because that's exactly what you are."

"I thought you were supposed to be smart? Aren't you the only one of us still getting A's in all your classes? I was thinking of morphing the anglerfish. You know, get inside the mind of the animal we need to write the report on."

"Wow, you actually came up with a decent idea. Did you take that from someone else? There's no way you came up with that on your own."

"Hey! Who do you think comes up with all the great plans against the Yeerks? It ain't Jake, and it certainly ain't Ax."

"You mean those missions where we almost all die each and every time?"

"When you say we, do you mean mostly you?"

"No, I mean we. If it weren't for me, the rest of you definitely would have died."

"Um, no, you are the one who gets all up on destruction that you stop paying attention to what's going on that you almost get us all killed."

"Um, no, I save you guys _and_ kill all the bad guys. Don't go blaming me for doing all your dirty work. Let's just get this over with. I want out of this aquarium."

Marco sighed and shook his head, but moved over to the tank with the female.

"No," I said. "We need to write about the male and the female. I get to morph the female and you get to be the male."

"You would pick the big one with all the teeth."

"You said that already. Just go acquire your little fishy and I'll get mine."

He turned and went to the tank with the male. I looked into the large display tank with the female. The tank was curved so that a portion of it was completely out of sight from the public. I couldn't see the fish, but I think it could see me. After a moment, I saw something swim quickly up to the surface then begin swimming back and forth, as if begging for food.

Its teeth were massive compared to its body. I wondered how in the world I was going to acquire something that could quickly bite off my hand. But I'd acquired a grizzly; no way a little fish was going to scare me. Pushing my doubts aside, I lunged at the fish, grabbing it by the tail. I quickly focused on it so that it would go into the trance before it could either swim away or try to bite me.

After a moment, I released it, and it drifted lazily back into the depths of the tank. "I got it," I called.

"I've got mine, too," Marco replied. "I sure hope I got the right fish. Mine didn't look anything like the other one. It sort of looked like an overgrown tadpole."

I snickered, "Well that's what you are anyway, so it won't be too difficult of a morph for you, now will it?"

Marco scowled, "Whatever you say, your highness. Where do you want to do this?"

"I don't know, this was your idea."

He pointed to a tank. "We could do it there. The lady said it was a quarter tank, and since there are no new or sick fish, it's empty."

"She said it's a quarantine tank. But, yeah, that sounds good to me. Are you wearing your morphing suit?" I asked.

"No, but I'll be fine in my boxers. What about you?"

"Always."

We walked over to the tank. We took off our clothes and set them in a pile behind a filter of some sort, just in case someone walked in while we were still in the tank. We didn't want anyone to wonder what a pile of clothes was doing where they didn't belong.

The quarantine tank's water level was about four inches below the top of the tank. The lady had said it was kept like that so that if the fish tried to jump out, it would have a harder time of doing so. That just meant we could both stand in the tank without spilling any water.

"Ready?" Marco asked.

"Let's do it."

"I knew you were going to say that. If only I had a dollar for every time you said that, I'd be…"

"You'd still be poor because you'd waste it all on video games."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Of course I'm right. Now, shut up, I'm trying to focus."

I focused on the anglerfish. The funny shape, the big teeth, the huge eyes, the little light lure. It was the little light lure that came first. It quite literally shot out of my forehead. Marco started laughing when his lips were replaced by ugly grey fish lips. It was quite disgusting. I closed my eyes for the rest of the morph.

I could feel myself shrink after that. At the same time, I could feel my jaw grow and my teeth start to lengthen and grow in number. My jaw became too large for my skull and I was forced to open my mouth.

You should be really glad you can't see yourself right now.

I wanted to respond, but I couldn't talk with all those teeth and thought-speak hadn't kicked in quite yet.

I felt my arms shrivel and turn to fins as my legs disappeared. My skin was now also covered in scales and my eyes were forced open as my eyelids disappeared. Marco quite literally looked like a tadpole with legs. But not just any legs, they were still one hundred percent human legs. The last of my changes completed as Marco's legs shriveled up and then were gone.

How are the instincts? I'm not getting anything yet. Marco said.

I was about to respond when they hit me.


End file.
